Chapter 1

Philosophical Perspective on

Self

Philosophy

Philosophy is derived from the Greek words "Philos" and "Sophia" which literally means "Love for
Wisdom'. It is the study of acquiring knowledge through rational thinking and inquiries that involves in
answering questions regarding the nature and existence of man and the world we live in. As such, it is
imperative to look into the various explanations from different philosophers their notion of what the
"Self" its nature and how it is formed in order to have a better picture on how people develop their
behaviors, attitude and actions and to be able to identify and understand who we are and how we came
to be.

Socrates
Socrates' work was never published, we were only able to know who Socrates is and his works
because of his illustrious students spoke generously and in detail about his knowledge, wit, wisdom and
intellect. His student Plato for example included Socrates in some of his work as a pivotal character.

He could be considered as the first martyr of education, knowledge and philosophy. For lighting
up the minds of his students, he was literally charged with corruption of minors. He was made to choose
between exile and death via the intake of hemlock Socrates chose the latter, thus dying as a martyr that
fights against ignorance and narrow-mindedness.

The philosophy of Socrates underlies in the importance of the notion "knowing oneself for him,
men's goal in life is to obtain happiness and such goal motivates us to act towards or avoid things that
could have negative repercussions in our lives. As such, by fully knowing oneself a person will be able to
achieve happiness.

Socrates also posited that possession of knowledge is a virtue and that ignorance is a depravity,
that a person's acceptance of ignorance is the beginning of acquisition of knowledge. So, one must first
have the humility to acknowledge one's ignorance so as to be able to know what he is lacking and what
he needs to know

Socrates believe that the answer to our pursuit in knowing ourselves lies in our own abilities and
wisdom, and that the only way for us to understand ourselves is through internal questioning or
introspection. This method of questioning oneself, where the person assumes the role of both the
teacher and the student is known to the world as the Socratic Method or Socratic Conversation.

By continuously asking and evaluating who we are we as a person will also be able to understand
our strengths and weaknesses, the things that we like and dislike, how we want people to treat us and
how we want ourselves to be treated, so by knowing these things we can act in accordance to what we
know we are and live our lives following our knowledge of ourselves.
Plato
One of the most prominent thinkers of his time, Plato included in his work the learnings and
ideas shared to him by his teacher Socrates. He wrote several literature that tackles politics, human
nature, and established the idea of virtue and intelligence. Plato is historically known to be the father of
the academy a place where learning and sharing of knowledge happens, that later became one of the
pillars and basis of what schools and education is now in the present.

Plato generally followed his teacher and the idea of knowing thyself although from his works
such with the notable ones' such as the allegory of the cave, the apology, and his work on a perfect
government and societal system, "the Republic" where he said that the world can only be led by a
Philosopher king, a person who is virtuous as well as intelligent. According to Plato, a person who is a
follower of truth and wisdom will not be tempted by vices and will always be just.

Plato also believed in the division of a person's body and soul which forms the person as a whole
aside from the material things and that could be observed and associated with a person, Plato
presented the idea the ones' soul is divided into 3 different parts that has different views leading to
different behaviors, these parts of the soul are known as the Appetitive, Spirited, and Rational Soul.

Plato's 3 parts of the soul

Appetitive Soul -Plato's idea of the appetitive soul is the part of the person that is driven by desire and
need to satisfy oneself. This satisfaction both involves physical needs and pleasures and desires. As long
as the person find an object or situation good or satisfying, the Appetitive soul can drive the person to
lean towards those objects and Situations.

Spirited Soul - this part of the soul can be attributed to the couragous part of a person, one who wants
to do something or to right the wrongs that they observe. Spirited soul are very competititive and is very
active, his competitiveness drives one to expect positive results and winning.

Rational Soul - The last part of the soul could be said is the driver of our lives, this is the part that thinks
and plan for the future "the conscious mind" it decides what to do, when to do it and the possible
results one could have depending on their actions.

St. Augustine
A Saint and a Philosopher of the church, St. Augustine follows the idea that God encompasses us
all, that everything will be better if we are with God. His work's focal point is on how God and his
teachings affects various aspects in life, he follows the belief that everything is better if we devote
ourselves in mending our relationship with God.

His idea of a man and how to understand who we are as a person is related to our
understanding of who we are and how we question ourselves, though St. Augustine also relates our
existence to God being modeled in his likeness though being alive means that we are still far from God
and has yet to be truly with him.
 St. Augustine also rejected the doubtfulness of the academy in which one cannot or should not
accept ideas from others. He emphasized that we may not be able to give our agreement to everything
other people tell us but we can still agree to those who we from our own perception, think is right or
wrong based from our perception.

He believes that our notion of ourselves and our idea of existence comes from a higher form of
sense in which bodily senses may not perceive or understand, and the more one doubts and question
his life means that, that person is actually living. St. Augustine while integrating the teaching of the
church in his philosophy and establishing our sense of self with God which we cannot achieve with our
bodies since the limitation of our senses in truly understanding the essence of our existence and role in
the world is limited. So people is in need to establish their relationship with god through being virtuous,
but at the same time, to be able to stand by on what we think is true, who we think we are that are from
our own understanding and solely defined by us alone although people may say differently, by
continuously questioning and finding the truth will we be able to find the best answer to who we are
and what our role is in the world.

Descartes
Rene Descartes is a French Philosopher known to be the father of modern philosophy because
of his radical use of systematic and early scientific method to aid his ideas and assumptions. Though his
works were often compared or said to be similar to the concept of St. Augustine which could be traced
back to the works of Plato, what his ideas sets him apart is on his belief in modern dualism or the
existence of body and mind and it's implication to one's existence were presented with the evidences
from experiments as well as philosophical reasoning, he also known to be the proponent of the
"Methodical Doubt" which simply meant of a continuous process of questioning what we perceive and
accepting the fact that doubting, asking questions are a part of ones' existence. As such he has defined
the roles of the mind and body to the notion of one's existence and sense of self.

Descartes is known for the statement "Cogito Ergo Sum" which means in English as "I think
therefore I am". According to him a person is comprised of mind and body the body that perceives from
the different senses and the mind that thinks and question or doubt what the body has experienced. For
him, the body and its perceptions cannot fully be trusted or can easily be deceived, For instance there
are times that we feel that a dream is real before actually waking up or having different perception of
size based on an objects distance from the viewer.

Descartes explained that because we cannot always trust our senses and in turn what we
perceive as who we are or the essence of our existence, we as a rational being should focus on the mind
and explained that the more we think and doubt what we perceived from our senses and the answer
that came from such thinking or doubting leads to better understanding of ourselves. He also implies
that being in a constant doubt regarding one's existence is proof that a person actually exist.
Locke
John Locke is an English Philosopher, Physician, He is considered to be the father of Classical
liberalism some of his works on this subject matter paved the way to several revolutions to fight the
absolute powers of monarchs and rulers of his time that led to the development of governance, politics
and economic system that we now know.

His work on the self is most represented by the concept "Tabula Rasa" which means a Blank
Slate. He believed that the experiences and perceptions of a person is important in the establishment of
who that person can become. Unlike what the other Philosophers view on human experiences and
senses, John Locke does not disregard the experiences of the person in the identification and
establishment of who we are as a person. He stated that a person is born with knowing nothing and that
is susceptible to stimulation and accumulation of learning from the experiences, failures, references,
and observations of the person.

Considering this, the process of the mind to absorb information and accumulate knowledge may
imply that as a person to be able to be whom we want to be, with the right stimulations, enough
experiences, as well as awareness that by primarily knowing nothing will enable one to be open to any
kind of learning and does not limit any possibilities for growth implies that the opportunity for one
person to develop to anything he wants to be is limited only to the environment, experiences, and the
choices of the person.

Hume
The Scottish Philosopher David Hume , focused his work in the field of Empiricism, Skepticism,
and naturalism. Being an Empiricist, which believes in concrete evidences and observable experiences
that meld a person, his notion on the self contradicts to the ideas of the philosophers before him which
said that at the notion of self, one's identity and behaviour does not exceed the physical realm and that
the "Self" is only the accumulation of different impressions.

According to him, there is no permanent "self, that since our impressions of things based from
our experiences and from such impressions we can create our ideas and knowledge which leads to the
argument that since our impression and ideas change, it may improve or totally be replaced means that
one change occurred the same phenomenon of will happen to ones idea of who he is and what he can
do.
 That is the idea that Hume reiterated when saying that there should be no permanent concept
of the self. He said when a person is asked the question "who you are? " That person tends to answer
different impressions such as good, happy, optimistic, contented, sad, etc. generally they apply to who
you are now but at the same time these characteristics might change from time to time. If the neighbour
you knew your entire life to be happy and have a positive outlook suddenly looked sad and discontented
can we say that the person you seeing is not your neighbour anymore?

Kant
Immanuel Kant, a German Philosopher that is known for his works on Empiricism and
Rationalism. Kant responded to Hume's work by trying to establish that the collection of impressions
and different contents is what it only takes to define a person.

Kant argued that the awareness of different emotions that we have, impressions and behaviour
is only a part of our self. He said that to fully understand who we are, a certain level of consciousness or
sense that uses our intuition which synthesizes all the experiences, impressions and perceptions of
ourselves will pave the way to define and know who we really are

Kant argued that the sense called "Transcendental Apperception" is anessence of our
consciousness that provides basis for understanding and establishing the notion of "self by synthesizing
one's accumulation of experiences, intuition and imagination goes. Which means that this idea goes
beyond what we experience but still able to become aware of. For example the idea of time and space,
we may not be able to observe the movement of time and the vastness of space but we are still capable
of understanding their concept based from what we can observe as their representation.

With that in mind and following the idea of Kant about Self, we can say that we are not only an
object that perceives and reacts to whatever it is that we are experiencing, we also have the capabilities
to understand beyond those experiences and be able to think and have a clear identification who we are
and establish a sense of self that is unique and distinct from others.

Freud
Sigmund Freud, an Austrian Psychologist and Physician, he is also known as the father of
psychoanalysis and is known for his work on human nature and the unconscious. Freud believed that
man has different constructs of personality that interacts with each other and along with his concept of
the different levels of consciousness provides an idea how a person develops a sense of self.

Aspects of Personality

ID - also known as the child aspect of a person, The ID's attention is on satisfaction of one's needs and
self-gratification. It is driven by the pleasure principle.

SUPEREGO - is the conscience of the one's personality, Superego has the inclination to uphold justice
and do what is morally right and socially acceptable actions. The superego is involved in the notion of
right or wrong that is imparted to us by our parents or people that tool care for us during childhood.
EGO - Sometimes known as the Police or the mediator between id and superego. It operates within the
boundaries of reality, primary function is to maintain the impulses of the ID to an acceptable degree.

Freud also introduced the idea that the accumulation of the experiences of a person helps build
his personality although such information are not stored in a single area where we can access them at
any time. He introduced the levels of consciousness, The Conscious where minority of our memories are
being stored and the memories that are in the conscious is easier to be tapped or accessed. The other
one is the Pre-conscious, the middle part of the entirety of our consciousness, the memories stored in
this area can still be accessed but with a little difficulty. And the last one is the Unconscious, this area is
where majority of our memories since childhood are deeply stored. It is very difficult to tap the
memories in the unconscious, it would need a trained professional and several special techniques in
order to make some memories resurface.

Freud believed that we are a by-product of our experiences in the past. And that are actions are
driven by the idea of resisting or avoiding pain, and are molded from our need for pleasure or being
happy.

Ryle
Gilbert Ryle with his Behavioristic approach to self, said that self is the behaviour presented by
the person, his notion of dualism is that the behaviour that we show, emotions and actions are the
reflection of our mind and as such is the manifestation of who we are.

Ryle does not believe that the mind and body, though some say can coexist, are two separate
entities which is said to be evident in the unexplainable phenomenon or abilities of the mind where the
soul is considered. To him, once we encounter others, their perceptions of what we do, how we act, and
the way we behave will then result to the understanding of other people and establishing of who we
are.

His explanation of self is further exemplified in his "ghost in the machine" view. This view said the
man is a complex machine with different functioning parts, and the intelligence, and other
characteristics or behaviour of man is represented by the ghost in the said machine.

He gave further explanation using an example imagining that if you are touring a visiting friend to
the university that you are studying and you brought him to the athletic centre, library, buildings and
classrooms, but then your friends ask "but where is the university? As such is the point of Ryle, all those
places, buildings and offices are the university which supports his idea that the mind and body is not
necessarily separate entities. So considering that analogy, the idea of Ryle is saying that the things that
we do, how we behave and react and all other components like the way we talk, walk, and look is
generally who we are as a person.
Churchland
Paul Churchland, a Canadian philosopher whose focus is on the idea that people should
improve our association and use of words in identifying the self. He has this idea that the "self" is
defined by the movements of our brain.

Churchland's work revolves around challenging of the notion and terms being used to explain
behavior or to explain how a person feels, thinks, and act with regardso physiological phenomenon that
is happening in the body as well as definitions brought about by emotions, this is one of the notion of
the concept of Folk Psychology also known as common sense psychology.

The main philosophy of Churhland built the idea of "eliminative materialism" Basically,
eliminative materialism opposes that people's common sense understanding of the mind is false and
that most of the mental states that people subscribe to, in turn do not actually exist, this idea also
applies on the understanding of behaviour and emotions.

This leads to his idea of Neurophilosophy, he believed that to fully understand one's behaviour,
one should understand the different neurological movement of the brain that pertains to different
emotions, feelings, actions and reactions and how such brain movements affect the body. With this in
mind we can eliminate the ambiguity of subjective and baseless identification of the mind, behaviour
and self in general because by understanding the different neural pathways, how they work, and what
implications are those movements are to people, will we not only have proof that there is a measurable
classification on one's behaviour it can also be said that the constant movement of the brain can be the
basis of who the person is this is emphasized by Churchland and his wife in the statement "The Brain as
the Self.

Merleau-Ponty
Maurice Jean Jacques Merleau-Ponty is a French philosopher that is known for his works on
existentialism and phenomenology. His idea of the self, regarded that the body and mind are not
separate entities, but rather those two components is one and the same. His idea that follows the
gestalt ideation where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts in which pushed his idea on the
unity of the function of the mind and body, this idea is called the Phenomenology of Perception.

The idea of Phenomenology of Perception according to Merleau-Ponty is divided into three (3)
division, The Body, The Perceived World, and the People and the world. The body that both receives
the experience as well as integrates such experiences in the different perception. The Perceived world,
which are the accumulation of the perception as integrated by the experiences of the body. And the
People and the world that enable one to not only be able to integrate the other objects in the world but
also to be able to experience the cultural aspect and relate to others.

His idea of perception follows the idea of Gestalt psychology which give important on the whole
than the sum of its part. For him, perception guides our action based from what our experiences are, the
body perceives while our consciousness provides the meaning or interprets the various perception we
have in the world and the self could be established by the perceptions we have in the world, whereas
one's action, behaviour and language used could be said to be the reflection of our united perception of
the world.
 Chapter 2

Sociological Perspective of the Self

Sociology, or the study of how human society is established, its structure and how it works, the people's
interaction with each other and the effects they have to one another is an aspect in which we have to
consider with regards to the development of a person. It is also important to understand that the
establishment of the “Self” based on social structures could give us a better understanding of who we
are and provide reasons how our interactions can affect us as a person.

George Herbert Mead and the Social Self

George Herbert Mead is an American Sociologist, he is considered as the Father of American
pragmatism, and one of the pioneers in the field of social psychology because of his contributions on the
development of the person relating to various social factors.

Mead rejected the idea of biological determination of the self which proposes that an individual
already has an established self from the moment he is born. For him, the notion of a person with
regards to who they are develops from one's social interaction with other people. He reiterated that the
process of establishing the self is through the construction and reconstruction of the idea of who we are
as a person during the process of social experience.

The "I" and the "Me”

Mead proposes that there are two components of the self which the person has, these
components are the "I" and the "Me". The "Me" are the characteristics, behavior and or actions done by
a person that follows the "generalized others" that person interacts with, while the "I” is the reaction of
the individual to the attitude of others, as well as the manifestation of the individuality of the person.
Simply speaking, According to Mead the concept the "I" is one's response to the established attitude,
and behavior that a person assumes in reference to their social interactions while the "Me" are the
attitudes, and behavior of the person with reference to their social environment.

Mead's Three Role-playing Stages of Self Development

Mead proposed that there a three stages in which a person has to go through for one to develop
one's self. These stages are the Preparation/Language Stage, Play stage, and Game stage.

The Preparatory Stage (Birth - 2 years Old) - According to Mead, during this stage the infant simply
imitates the actions and behaviors of the people that the infant interacts with. Because the child is only
mimicking what he or she observes from his or her environment their actions are only the reflection of
what they can remember without any intention or meaning behind their actions or behavior.

The Play Stage (2 - 6 years old) - for the Play stage, it is the time where children begins to interact with
other with which certain rules apply, these rules often time does not adhere to any set or standards but
rather are rules that are set by the children themselves. Also this is the stage where the child practices
real life situations through pretend play and is the onset of self- consciousness. The development of the
self in this stage occurs through the preliminary experiences that serves as practice for the child.

The Game Stage (6-9 years old) - The final stage of self-development according to Mead where are
characterized by the ability of the children to recognize the rules of the game and be able to identify
their roles and the roles of the others that is playing with them. With this, the children at this stage
learns the implications of their actions as well is the understanding or taking into account how one can
take into account the view point of the society on the attitudes and actions.

With the idea of Mead with regards to the establishment of the sense of self, socialization is a
lifetime endeavor, and the people one interacts with will change throughout a person's life, as such,
considering the social environment one belongs to along with the changes on the person's development,
may it be at school, home, or work, the interactions and experiences the person acquires from those
people and situations helps define a more concrete identity and sense of self. That idea of "Self may be
based on the general attitudes and behaviors of other people or the individuality of the person that
manifests as a response to those attitudes and behaviors of others.
 Chapter 3

Anthropological Perspective of the Self

Anthropology

The Self and the Person in Contemporary Anthropology

I. Anthropology and Its Subdisciplines

The academic discipline of anthropology, or "four-field" anthropology, studies human species
and its immediate ancestors includes four main sub disciplines or subfields sociocultural, archeological,
biological and linguistic anthropology. Each sub discipline studies adaptation, the process which
organisms cope with the environmental. Anthropology is a systematic exploration of human biological
and cultural diversity.

The Subdisciplines of Anthropology

1. Cultural Anthropology

Cultural anthropology is the study of human society and culture which describes, analyzes,
interprets and explains social and cultural similarities and differences. It explores the diversity of the
present and the past. Ethnography and ethnology are two different activities which can study and
interpret cultural diversity.

Ethnography requires fieldwork to collect data, often descriptive and specific to group. On the other
hand, ethnology uses data collected by a series of researches, usually synthetic and comparative

2. Archeological Anthropology

Archeological anthropology reconstructs, describes and interprets human behavior and cultural
patterns through material remains. These materials remain such as plant, animal and ancient garbage
provides stories about utilization and actions.

3. Biological, or Physical Anthropology

Biological, or Physical Anthropology focuses on these special interest, human evolution as

revealed by the fossil, human genetics, human growth and development, human biological plasticity and
the biology, evolution, behavior and social life of monkeys, apes and other nonhuman primates.

4. Linguistic Anthropology

Linguistic anthropology studies language in its social and cultural context across space and over
time. Universal features of language are analyzed and association between language and culture are
evaluated. It also studies how speech changes in socialsituations and over time.
The Self Embedded in the Culture
Culture refers to customary behavior and beliefs that are passed on through enculturation (Kottak,
2008), wherein enculturation is the social process which culture is learned and transmitted Culture is a
social process that is learned and passes from generation to the next. Culture depends on images, which
have a specific significance and incentive for individuals who share a culture. Cultural traditions take
regular marvels, including organic desires, and transforming them specifically headings. Everybody is
cultured. Social orders are coordinated and designed through predominant monetary powers, social
examples, key images and core values. Cultural mean of adjustment have been urgent in human
evolution. Cultures oblige people, yet the activities of people can change cultures.

Culture defined: Culture is shared, symbolic, natural, learned, integrated, encompassing and
maladaptive and adaptive.

Csordas (1999) elaborated that the human body is not essential for anthropological study but the
paradigm of embodiment can be explored in the understanding culture and the self. The body is not an
object to be studied in relation to culture, but is to be considered as the subject of culture, or in other
words as the existential ground of culture.

On the other hand, Geertz (1973) described culture as "a system of inherited conceptions expressed in
symbolic forms by means of which men communicate, perpetuate, and develop their knowledge about
and attitudes toward life"

The interpretation of the symbols in each culture is essential which gives meaning to one's action. Each
culture has its own symbols and has its own meaning; one must need to comprehend those meanings
keeping in mind the end goal to understand the culture, One must disconnect the components of
culture, discover the relationship among those components, and portray the entire framework in some
broad way.
 Chapter 4

Psychological Perspective of the Self

Psychology
Psychology has various ways of understanding a person and the therapist way of helping people
understand themselves. Self by definition is a reference by an individual to the same individual person.
Having its own or single character as a person, referring to the person as same individual.

The psychology of studying self is about either the cognitive and affective representation of one's
identity or the subject of experience. The earliest formulation of the self in modem psychology forms
the distinction between the self as /, the person knower, and the self as Me, the person that is known.

"The Self and It Selves"

William James, a psychologist, has introduced in his document The Principles of Psychology (1890) a
numerous concepts and distinction of self. For James, his main concepts of self are the "me-self and the
"I-self'. The "me-self" is the phenomenal self, the experienced self or the self as known. It is the self that
has experience the phenomena and who had known the situation. The "I-self" is the self-thought or the
self-knower. James had claimed that the understanding of Self can be separated into three categories:
"1. Its constituents; 2. The feeling and emotions they arouse - Self-feelings, 3. The actions to which
they prompt - Self-seeking and self-preservation James, 1890, p162)

Also, James wrote sub-categories of self, 1. the material self, 2. the social self; and 3. the spiritual self.

The Material Self is constituted by our bodies, clothes, immediate family and home. It is in this that we
attached more deeply into and therefore we are most affected by because of the investment we give to
these things. The Social Self is based on our interactions with society and the reaction of people towards
us. It is our social self that thought to have multiple divergence or different version of ourselves. It varies
as to how we present ourselves to a particular social group. The most intimate self, the Spiritual self. It
is the most intimate because it is more satisfying for the person that they have the ability to argue and
discriminate one's moral sensibility, conscience and indomitable will.
Conception of Self
Carl Rogers, had come up with his conception of self through the intervention he used for his client, the
Person-centered therapy. It is a non-directive intervention because it believes that all people have the
potential to solve their own problems. Rogers believe that people must be fully honest with themselves
in order to have personal discovery on oneself. In this concept of self, he had come up with three sides
of a triangle.

A. The Perceived Self - (Self worth - how the person sees self & others sees them)
B. The Real Self - (Self Image - How the person really is)
C. The Ideal Self - (How the person would like to be)

Concept of Unified and Multiple Self

As DanielCW (2016) wrote in his article "Psychoanalysis vs Postmodern Psychology" he has emphasized
how Freud percieved person as a unified beings and Gergens concept of multiple "selves"

In Freud's concept, he argued that mind is divided into three connected but distict parts The Id, Ego and
Super Ego. Id as the center of primitive, animalistic impluses (sex, food & comfort) following the
pleasure principle. Superego as the center for ethical imperative. The one that reminds the self of what
is right of wrong following morality principle. And the Ego as the moderator between these two which
was driven by rationality principle. And then also, Freud has stated two important division of mind, the
conscious and unconscious. Conscious are the thoughts that we are aware of. And Unconscious as
thoughts that we are not aware of. (DanielCW, 2016)

Although, Freud has argued that self has a multiple parts, he still believed that ultimately we are a
Unified beings (Atleast, when we are healthy). Ego remains at the helm of mind, guiding the Id and
Superego and staying at the center. Thus Gergen argued that having a flexible sense of self allows for
multiple "selves". That it is up to the the self to define himself as warm or cold, dominant or submissive,
sexy or plain. According to Kenneth Gergen, proponent of Post modern Psychology, The individual has
many potential selves. He carries within him the capacity to identify himself, whether warm or cold,
dominant or submissive, sexy or plain. How we bring ourselves in every situation will held him get
through for a day. Therefore, maybe it is healthy to have many mask. Multiple selfhood is part of what it
means to be human, and forcing oneself to stick to one self-concept maybe unhealthy.

True Self and Fake Self

True Self, as rooted from early infancy is called the simple being. The sense of self based on
spontaneous authentic experience and feeling of being alive, having "real self”. Example, as a baby we
react base on our sense of reality. The baby reacted spontaneously based on our instinctual sense

Fake Self, is our defense facade. Overlaying or contradicting the original sense of self. Problem would be
we might build false set of relationship through concealing a barren emptiness behind an independent-
seeming facade
emptiness behind an independent-seeming facade